


that's all that it would take

by withoutwords



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Breaking Up & Making Up, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 20:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13959849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: The first night they got together, Danny stayed over and didn’t leave for three days. The next time it was just over a week. Then the next time was indefinitely, at least Steve hoped it was: Danny’s clothes on his floor and the kids’ toys in the spare room and four plates set up for dinner every other night.(Except last time Danny left and he didn’t come back.)





	that's all that it would take

**Author's Note:**

> This has a happy, fluffy ending but is still pretty sad. It’s also set in some strange timeline, around season four or five - Danny knows that Charlie is his. Um, so yeah, be warned for angst! And thank you for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> (Also there is one instance of violence between Steve and Danny, but it’s very brief and not overly connected to the emotional stuff.)

There’s still a blue and white striped tie hooked on the back of Steve’s closet door. He should probably take it into work one day, put it on Danny’s desk or hang it with his keys; some place he can find it on his own so they can avoid the awkward,  _ “You left this - ” “Oh, I was wondering where that - ” _ conversation.

He doesn’t.

He just lets it swing there when he goes rummaging for a shirt (or his boots, or those jeans Mary brought him that he keeps exclusively for when she’s visiting). It’s the only tie in the whole house - except for the box full of his father’s stuff still collecting dust in the garage - so it’s not like it doesn’t stick out.

But if Steve’s good at anything it’s torturing himself.

So it stays. Just like the top in the bottom drawer, or the stale cereal in the kitchen or the  _ Best of Bruce Springsteen _ CD that’s so old it looks vintage. It’s been almost two months since Danny told him ‘I can’t do this anymore’ and walked out - so if he’s not going to come looking for his stuff, Steve’s not going to chase him down with it.

That’s not who they are any more.

*

It had always been a matter of time. Being partnered with Danny was all chaos and shouting, was a runaway train that he couldn’t slow down. He’d felt things for men before, had a few in his bed, but it was different with Danny. It was always going to be different.

In the end it was just a surprise that it took so long.

“Never have I ever,” Danny had said with that stupid laugh, late one night when they’d almost had too much to drink.

“You did not just,” Steve begun to say but then Danny went on,

“Had sex with a man,” and he shut up pretty fast. They watched each other take a drink, and then Steve watched Danny wipe at his mouth, and it was like submerging in full scuba gear, like trying to get your head on straight when the pressure was too much.

Steve barely had time to catch his breath before Danny was across the sofa and on top of him.

“Fuck, Steve,” Danny grunted at him between kisses, tugging at his shirt to free it from his pants, tugging at Steve’s to do the same. “Wanted this so long,  _ too long _ .”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. A giddy, silly thing that he couldn’t explain. He wanted to bet Danny it was longer for him, he wanted to detail all the times he bit down on protests about Rachel, or Gabby, or worse,  _ New Jersey _ .

But he just told Danny, “Yeah, yes, me too,” and that was it.

Everything changed.

*   


Some days Steve’s on the edge of bringing someone into his office - Chin or Kono or Lou he doesn’t care - and telling them everything. How the first night they got together, Danny stayed over and didn’t leave for three days. Then the next time it was just over a week. Then the next time was indefinitely, at least Steve hoped it was: Danny’s clothes on his floor and the kids’ toys in the spare room and four plates set up for dinner every other night.

(Except last time Danny left and he didn’t come back.)

The problem is, there’s no one to tell.

No one knew and no one cares and the worst part of it all, is that they _ would have _ . Of course they would have. They were just never given the chance.

“Boss?” Kono calls from his office door, her head poked around the glass.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Steve says, motioning for her to come in. “I spaced there for a second.”

“I noticed. Everything okay?”

“Definitely. I’m just distracted with this case. What’ve you got?”

*

They haven’t stopped being partners, but the cracks are starting to show. Danny doesn’t argue about who’s driving, he doesn’t talk in the car, there’s no suggestion for a meal after work or a pitstop to get malasadas. Steve feels like he’s back in basic, trying to relearn all the steps.

Except he knows Danny better than any one.

How he always rolls his sleeves up before watching a game. How he likes to fold his sweaters a certain way so they don’t crease. How he sings along to Lionel Richie just loud enough so that Steve can hear.

How he likes to be fucked on his back with his knees up, with his fingers clenched into the muscle of Steve’s back as though he might fall if he lets go. How he makes these short, panting sounds from deep in his throat, curses and chants and says Steve’s name like  _ that’s _ a song he wants him to hear too.

Steve knows all of it.

And he misses it so much it hurts.

*

They’re a few days into an ugly homicide with no leads and too-long days. They’ve brought Jerry in to help and Max is on call and Steve feels so stretched thin he’s about to tip over. It used to be a lot easier than this, Steve knows. Or maybe it felt easier, because he had Danny, and even though they’d always argue they’d meet somewhere in the middle.

“Can we talk?” Steve asks from the doorway, Danny hunched over his desk.

“Steve, I’m - ”

“About work, about this,” he assures, waving papers around to make a point.

Danny lets out the kind of breath Steve feels like he’s holding, tipping back in his chair. “Alright, yeah.”

He looks tired, Steve thinks as he collapses into the seat opposite him. He looks older and out of place and it hurts to think he didn’t notice it before. That they actively avoid each other enough not to see these things so obviously.

One time Steve knew Danny wasn’t okay because he put too much sugar in his coffee.

How did they get here?

“Danny, I - ” Steve starts to say, after half an hour of going over all the gruesome case details. Again.

_ I want you to come home with me, _ he doesn’t say. _ I want you to stay there. I want to fight for us the way I didn’t before. I want, I want, I want you.   _

“I’m here for you, man,” is what he finally settles on, Danny’s eye’s not quite meeting his. “I know things are different now but I’m still your partner. I’ll always be here for you.”

Danny offers a quiet “Thanks,” but doesn’t call Steve back when he goes.

*   


Danny’s punched Steve twice now, two quick hooks that he never saw coming. He still thinks the first one was out of line, but he gets why it happened again those few months ago. Three A.M in the morning in Steve’s darkened lounge room, Danny wearing his sweatpants and Steve with one shoe still on.

“Fuck you,” he’d shouted, and Steve had known from that alone the kids must have been at Rachel’s.

Steve had touched at his mouth and come away with blood and even then, with Danny’s hair out of place and his breath short and shocking - even then Steve had thought they were going to be okay.

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” Steve had tried to say, but Danny wasn’t listening.

“I begged you not to go, Steve, I  _ begged _ you.”

“I couldn’t let Cath do that on her own, I couldn’t - ”

“But you could leave me here without you? Not knowing where you were, not knowing if you were alive.”

“Danny - ”

“No, don’t,” Danny cuts in, a hand up in Steve’s face to stop him.  “I’ve had four nights of sitting alone in this house trying to think of what you might say to make this better and I got nothing.  _ Nothing, Steve _ . She’s your friend, and we all love her, and we all want to help. But cutting yourself off from me and going off the grid will never be okay. Not now, after months of living with you, not later when you might decide to tell me you love me, when you might decide you want to make a real thing of this.”

“I do - ”

“You’ll always drop everything and help. Maybe it won’t always be Catherine, maybe it won’t always be the Navy, but that’s you, and I know that, but I can’t deal with it, not like this.”

“Danny,”

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”

*

Steve had always thought he wouldn’t have kids. Before Wo Fat, and Five-0, and Danny, Steve had been determined that his adult life would begin and end with the Seals. Which hadn’t bothered him, then, because he hadn’t known what he was missing.

He hadn’t known the sight of Danny and Grace bickering about her Math homework at his kitchen table. He hadn’t known the joy of Charlie grinning at him when he stood on a surfboard down on the beach. He hadn’t known the feeling of their arms around him, their pure, unconditional, _ I love you _ s.

He hadn’t known a real family, not for years.

But he’s known about having it taken away.

“Uncle Steve?” Grace calls to him from the front door, Steve almost tumbling down the stairs to get to her. She has the key he gave her still in her hand, her school uniform still on from the day.

“Gracie, what’s going on, where’s Danno?”

“He’s with Charlie. They’re fine. Mom dropped me here.”

“Okay. Is everything okay with you?”

Grace’s mouth twists unhappily, her fingers fiddling roughly at her key. “Not really.”

“What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. I thought you could tell me.”

Steve feels the admission hard in his throat, suddenly too dry to swallow around it. “Is this about me and your dad?”

She laughs, despite the tears beginning to well in her eyes, her fingers pressed to the corners. “Yep. You and Dad. Dad and You. That’s pretty much my life since I got here.”

“We’re just going through some stuff, kiddo. We had a fight and we’re working on it.”

Grace scoffs at him and Steve’s so suddenly reminded of her father that he thinks he might cry too. “I never see you anymore. Danno just says that you’re busy - ”

“We are - ”

“And then tells me to stop asking.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, and means it. He puts an arm around her, lets her sniffle into his shoulder, lets himself believe that this can still be his future. “I can’t - I can’t speak for your dad but he has his reasons.”

“What reasons? He knew you were a soldier, he knows you go to war, that just happens!”

“Yeah, but - it changed sweetheart. Your dad, he needed me here and I left anyway, and I can’t ask him to do that, to sit around and wait for me, I - ”

“Yes you can! You love him! And he loves you! You can ask him for everything that’s the whole point!”

Steve laughs softly and pulls her in for a hug, kissing the top of her head. She’s got her mother’s tenacity and her father’s stubbornness and she’s strong, even today, after all the terrible things she’s been through. After all the waiting she’s had to do, too.

“I do love him,” Steve says, “And I love you, and I love Charlie, and that will never change. I promise. I promise it will get better.”

*

There was a weekend, some time in March, when they had no cases to work on. When they’d crossed their Ts and dotted their Is and literally been through everything with a fine tooth comb. Danny woke him up on the Saturday with a coffee and a blowjob and told Steve in no uncertain terms that they weren’t getting dressed, and weren’t leaving the house, and definitely, definitely, weren’t answering the phone unless the whole of Honolulu was on fire.

It hadn’t taken much convincing.

Steve made waffles and Danny yelled at the TV and they played Monopoly in bed until Steve had thrown the board across the room in his frustration and fucked Danny into the mattress.

“I still had Mayfair,” Danny had said when they’d gotten into the shower, grinning like an asshole so that Steve turned the spray into his face.

“I think we were both winners after that,” Steve had said, but Danny was still taking the claim.

They’d had naps, and listened to music, and pretended to read books until they were making out on the sofa like a couple of teenagers. They tried to cook dinner but burnt it when they got distracted; ordering pizza from Danny’s favourite place instead and ignoring the salad on the table that Steve had insisted he’d make.

The kids Skyped them on Sunday night before bed, and they caught up on the last few episodes of Survivor and when they went to bed Danny’s fingers were curled in Steve’s as he pulled him down on top of him and asked for Steve to fuck him.

It had been different to that, though - not the frenzied, desperate sex they’d usually have - slowed down, and broken apart and torturous, almost. Steve couldn’t compare it to anything else. He wore it on his bones now. He’d die with it.

“I don’t know why you ever leave,” Steve had said to Danny’s throat, after, mouthing at the sweat-slicked skin there.

“Mmm, me either,” Danny had agreed, and so he didn’t.

Not for a long time, anyway.

*

His mom taught him how to make his bed when he was five. Regulation, good enough to bounce a quarter off, hard enough trying to get back into it at the end of the day. His dad put a gun in his hand when he wasn’t much older, the two of them shooting cans out amongst the trees. Joe got him through all the training for football - drills and weights and maneuvers that Steve probably couldn't do now as a fully grown man.

Steve’s life was militant from the start.

And he was loved, he was - they loved him in their own way. The way that made Mary disappear out of her window every night, or bring a boy home just because she knew their dad would hate him. The way that made Steve strive and strive for what was good, and right, and better.

Risk and reward.

Only now he knows the rewards are different. His mom learnt that too late, and his dad died for it, and Steve doesn’t want that to be him.

“Please let me keep trying,” he says the moment Danny opens the door for him, loud over the rain that thunders down behind him. “When you left I was angry because I thought you were wrong, okay, I thought you were trying to tell me what I should do but I get it now, seriously, I want it to change, all of it, I want - ”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Danny shouts at him, squinting as though Steve might be some kind of mirage.

“Didn’t you just hear me?”

“Steve, just - just go, alright,” he calls back, glancing over his shoulder into the house, and Steve feels his stomach drop to his feet.  “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Do you have someone here?” Steve hears himself asking, wondering if Gabby is back, or there’s someone new on the scene, or there’s been someone a long time, maybe someone who helped him get over Steve, move on from Steve, he’s moving on -

“I have my kids here, you idiot.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t argue. He is an idiot. “Oh, shit. Sorry. I’ll just - ”

“Uncle Steve!” Charlie screeches from somewhere inside, and then Steve’s suddenly hit with a solid weight; Charlie throwing himself around Steve’s knees.

“Hey, buddy, hey,” Steve says, crouching down to give him a proper hug. “It’s good to see you. What have you been up to, huh?”

“We’re watching Finding Nemo. Come on, come inside.”

“Oh, uh - ” Charlie’s pulling at Steve’s pants and Danny’s staring at his son and Steve had a whole speech prepared for this, he had so much he wanted to say before he would even attempt to step back into their lives.

“Just, come on,” Danny says, exasperated, and Steve follows them both into the house.

*

After their first night together, things were different. It wasn’t just the sex, or Danny moving in, or the fact they still managed to find out new things about each other that ticked the other person off. It was all the things that  _ didn’t _ change. They didn’t talk about what it was. They didn’t tell people. They didn’t name it.

And maybe it was a relationship, and maybe Danny was his boyfriend, and maybe they were in love - Steve was, he still is and he gets that it’s important now, he gets that words have always meant a lot to Danny and he should have known that.

He does know that.

“I didn’t come here to…” Steve had tried to say after the movie, when the kids were asleep and Danny had walked him to the door. “I want you to know that you’re worth it, Danno. You’re worth staying for, and fighting for, and _ living _ for. You’re worth more than anything else I’ve ever had in my whole life and I miss you so much, I really, really miss you.”

Steve holds back a small sob, pressing a hand to his face to keep it together.

“I do love you, I’m so in love with you man, and I should have told you that. I should have told you every day.”

Danny’s crying now, too, just enough for the light to catch his tears. His hands stay in his pockets though, he keeps his head ducked, and Steve knows he’s not getting anything more than that tonight. You can’t corner Danny Williams and not expect a fight.

“Anyway I - I’ll see you on Monday, alright?” Steve says, clasping a hand on Danny’s shoulder, and almost crying again when Danny brings a hand up and grabs on for a moment.

“Night, Steve.”

*   


The changes start so slowly, Steve almost misses them at first. Danny tells him about Charlie’s soccer game one day, then offers him a plate for his lunch the next. He makes a joke about Lou’s history in some garage band, and invites Steve to join him and Kono in his office for a lazy game of poker while they’re on break.

Danny starts to bicker about the car, and about Steve’s driving, and they fall into a pattern so familiar that Steve finds himself smiling a lot more, sleeping a lot better, worrying a lot less.

Then Danny cops a slew of bullets to his kevlar and Steve almost knocks out a nurse at the hospital.

“Relax, I’m over here,” Danny calls from a room just off the corridor. “Animal.”

He’s got his shirt half on and unbuttoned, his chest a messy splash of blue and black and purple bruising. He winces when he tries to get it all the way onto his shoulders, and Steve steps up to help, fumbling at the buttons.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes,” Danny says impetuously, his eyes cast down as if Steve needs supervision. “It hurts like a bitch but I’ll manage.”

“You can come back to mine - ” Steve starts, and Danny seems to tense for a whole other reason.

“I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t mean,” Steve can feel his face go a little hot. “You can’t do much when you’re like this.”

“Well that’s fine, isn’t it, because I’d only planned to take a lot of drugs and go to sleep.”

“At least let me help you home? Please?”

Danny doesn’t bicker about Steve driving him, for a change, which probably has a lot to do with the fact he can’t even put his own shoes on. It’s not the first time they’ve had to take care of each other like this - but it feels worse somehow, knowing there’s an ocean of unchartered water between them now.

Knowing he’ll drown if Danny shuts him out.

“Alright, you’ve got your painkillers, ice, water, there’s some extra blankets right there if you need them,” Steve’s saying, mentally checking them off the list. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” Danny snaps, then seems to regret it. He sighs. “Thanks, I’m good. You should go back to the office, see what the others have got.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

Steve does another quick check of the house to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything, and just as he’s quietly heading out the front door Danny calls him groggily from his place on the sofa. Steve goes.

“Yeah, Danno?”

“C’mere.”

Steve leans down, and Danny leans up, and it’s chaste and dry and it’s the best kiss Steve’s ever had.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Danny says softly, his thumb back and forth on Steve’s cheek. “Thank you.”

*   


Danny comes back on a Tuesday, asking and telling and shouting. Steve says, yes, and I know, and I will, and he makes promises he should have made a long time ago. They move from the door to the sofa to the lanai to back inside, and it’s cathartic, it’s unreal, Steve keeps a hand on him at all times in the fear he might run off again.

“I’m sorry too, you know,” Danny tells him when they’re tangled up at the kitchen table, red eyed and red lipped and tired. “I should have worked it out with you. I know that. But - but I couldn't listen to you make excuses any more. I couldn’t listen to you tell me why the work we do is so important. And that’s selfish.”

“It is important,” Steve says, “But not as important as you. And you’ve gotta know that, Danny. You gotta know that I know that. I always have. I just get lost in it sometimes.”

“Can we tell everyone?” Danny asks, out of nowhere, and Steve takes a moment to balk.

“Uh, yeah, I mean - ”

“I need people to know, Steve. I need it to be different this time.”

“It will be. How do you want to do it? All together or?”

“No, no, just. I just want them to know.”

Steve smiles, leaning in to press his nose to Danny’s temple. “I do, too. And what should we tell them?  _ Partners _ partners?  _ Boyfriends _ ?”

Danny pushes at him. “Putz. You’re not thirteen. No. You’re just - you’re mine.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees. That’s all he’d wanted to be.

*   


There’s a dozen ties hanging in Steve’s closet now (one has storm troopers on it because Jerry didn’t understand what sort of gifts you get people for their housewarming). There’s nicely folded sweaters in his drawers, and four toothbrushes in his bathroom, and a TV magazine with the worst programs circled.

There’s boyband posters and stickers all over his spare bedroom wall. There’s candy in his fridge and a stack of CDs on his coffee table he’ll never voluntarily listen to. There’s more dirty washing than he knows what to do with and a pile of wet bathers abandoned on the lanai.

There’s a beautiful man twisted in his sheets, red marks all over his neck and his feet cold where they tangle with Steve’s.

“What was it like here?” Danny all but whispers, into the quiet. It’s late and it’s dark and Steve’s making patterns with his fingers in Danny’s palm. “Without us?”

“I don’t know. Empty, I guess.”

Just space waiting to be filled.

“It won’t be like that again,” Danny tells him, like an oath, taking his fingers to press to his mouth. “I won’t let it.”

“Me either,” Steve agrees, and then he’s pressing a kiss to his fingers, to Danny’s mouth, and he’s asking him the only thing that makes sense, “Marry me?”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


End file.
